A recent development of third generation (3G) wireless communications is the long term evolution (LTE) cellular communication standard, sometimes referred to as a 4th generation (4G) system. 4G systems will be deployed in existing spectral allocations owned by network operators and new spectral allocations that are yet to be licensed. LTE devices are able to operate on carriers of bandwidth up to 20 MHz. FIG. 1 illustrates a simplified block diagram of a downlink sub-frame of a carrier 100 comprising a legacy control channel region 105 and a plurality of resource blocks (RBs) 110 as stipulated in the LTE standard. In FIG. 1, the RBs span a bandwidth of 20 MHz 115, where each RB comprises twelve sub carriers and each sub carrier has a bandwidth of 15 KHz. RBs comprise physical downlink shared channels (PDSCH).
The requirement to support a bandwidth of up to 20 MHz increases device cost in comparison to lower bandwidth systems, such as the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). The cost of supporting high bandwidth devices has led to an increasing desire to support low bandwidth (and hence low cost) LTE devices within higher bandwidth carriers. Examples of devices that could beneficially use LTE include so-called machine type communication (MTC) devices, which are typified by semi-autonomous or autonomous wireless communication devices communicating small amounts of data on a relatively infrequent basis. Examples of MTC devices include so-called smart meters, which, for example, may be located in a customer's house and periodically transmit information back to a central MTC server data relating to the customer's consumption of a utility such as gas, water, electricity and so on.
Whilst it can be convenient for a terminal such as an MTC type terminal to take advantage of the wide coverage area provided by a third or fourth generation mobile telecommunication network, there are at present disadvantages. Unlike a conventional third or fourth generation mobile terminal such as a smartphone, an MTC-type terminal is preferably relatively simple and inexpensive. The type of functions performed by the MTC-type terminal (e.g. collecting and reporting back data to the network) do not require particularly complex processing to be performed. In many scenarios, providing low capability terminals with a conventional high-performance LTE receiver unit capable of receiving and processing data from an LTE downlink frame across the full carrier bandwidth can be overly complex and expensive for a device which only needs to communicate small amounts of data.
Some MTC devices (and in particular smart meters) may be installed in locations where coverage is poor. For example smart meters may be deployed in basements or cellars where there is significant penetration loss through the building. In order to support communications to/from these MTC devices, a larger system gain (also referred to as maximum coupling loss) needs to be supported by the wireless communication system. Some known potential methods of increasing the supported system gain include:                increasing the eNodeB transmit power. This requires the installation of higher power (and more expensive) power amplifiers at the eNodeB. There may be significant opposition to the installation of such equipment by local residents.        use of external antennas at the UE. These external antennas may be installed at street level and connected to the smart meter in the basement. However, use of such external equipment is likely to increase the cost of deployment by increasing installation cost.        installation of extra network nodes, such as relays or femto cells, adding cost and complexity to the wireless system.        significantly increasing the error correction coding (e.g. repetition coding) applied to the signal. There would also be a significant increase in the number of reference symbols applied.        application of beamforming or beam steering techniques; hence concentrating the eNodeB energy at the UE. Such techniques might require the addition of significant extra equipment at the eNodeB.        